After launching a new “Data Security” section for Android apps in the Play Store, Google appears to be preparing to remove app whitelisting from both the mobile app and the web.
The change was highlighted by Mishaal Rahman of Esper earlier this week.
The data security section, which Google began rolling out in late April 2022, is the company’s response to Apple’s iOS Privacy Feed Labels, allowing users to have a unified view of collection and processing practices. of an application’s data.
To this end, third-party app developers are required to provide the required details by July 20, 2022. With this deadline approaching next week, the tech giant has taken the step to remove the permissions section entirely.
The decision also seems to be rushed, as a number of popular apps such as Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Amazon (including Amazon Prime Video), DuckDuckGo, Discord and PhonePe have yet to fill out their data security sections.
It’s not immediately clear what prompted Google to go ahead with the change, especially given that the data security section operates on an honor system that requires developers to make full and accurate disclosures in their app store listings. theirs.
The list of app permissions, in contrast, was curated by Google based on a scan of the app during the verification process, giving users a handy tool to check all permissions required by each app before installation.
It is suspected that readability improvements provided by the data security section may have played a role in the change, although it remains to be seen how reliable the new system is.
